Nebraska has won nine or 10 games in each of Bo Pelini's six seasons. It has lost exactly four games in all of them. It finished between 20th and 25th in the final AP poll in 2010, 2011 and 2012, and was No. 26 in last year's final balloting.

It gets its three toughest conference games on the road (Iowa, Michigan State and Wisconsin), but also has an excellent chance to be 5-0 before any of those games arrive. It has a stellar running back in Ameer Abdullah, around which it can build its usual stout ground game.

In a favorable light, Nebraska is steady. In less flattering terms, it has plateaued. At many places, a plateau of winning 57 games in six seasons is plenty good.

Nebraska expects more, if only because it ruled the Big Eight (along with Oklahoma) for generations under two legendary coaches. Things change over time, and while it would be nice to think Pelini could muster an 11-2 season from time to time, it's best to bank on 10-4 or 9-4 for this fall.

Nebraska in haiku:

Danger zone up front
So much lost from the o-line
Could be problem spot

You have to give it to Todd Graham. He might be a football mercenary with family seemingly in every corner of the lower 48 states, but he's a football mercenary who can run an exceptionally potent offense.

Arizona State dropped half-a-hundred on six occasions last year on its way to a 10-2 regular season. It was hammered in the Pac-12 title game by Stanford and was probably a bit disinterested in its bowl loss to Texas Tech. It happens; that's why making too big a deal of bowl records is a dangerous thing.

There are three questions for this year's edition of the Sun Devils. One, can it keep scoring even while losing five starters on offense (probably). Two, can it maintain a turnover margin of roughly plus one a game (probably not).

Then there's the defense, which was stingy against the run. Nine starters are gone, and most of them were pretty good. Who knows if Arizona State will be able to stop anybody.

Fortunately for the Sun Devils, they get some time to figure out that question. Arizona State faces Weber State, New Mexico and Colorado before the schedule turns far less pleasant, but even then it gets UCLA, Stanford and Notre Dame (three of its top four opponents) at home. By that point, Taylor Kelly and the offense should be re-established enough that the Sun Devils find themselves in nearly every game.

There's nothing Bill Snyder can do that will be as impressive as his resurrection of Kansas State's program the first time around. But his second stint, with its 36 victories over the last four seasons, looks mighty fine as well.

Nine wins a year is not a given, at least it shouldn't be for the Wildcats. Beyond the ample junior college scene, there isn't much nearby talent. And there's the whole resource advantage for Oklahoma and Texas.

It will happen again this year, especially after the Wildcats started to figure things out at the end of last season. K-State won six of its last seven, and it gets a choice nonconference game (a rarity under Snyder) against Auburn on Sept. 18 to make a statement.

Of course, Kansas State has never been big on making statements. It just goes out and wins, over and over and over again. With Jake Waters at quarterback and Tyler Lockett a safe choice for another 1,000-yard season, the Wildcats should flirt with a 10-win season before all is said and done.

OK, so playing Louisiana State in Dallas to open the season could prove ugly for Gary Andersen's Badgers. But before anyone goes tweeting about #karma, it's worth mentioning that Wisconsin was one of the big winners of Big Ten realignment.

Out go annual games against Ohio State and Penn State, and while facing Nebraska every year isn't a picnic, the Badgers have a friendlier road on average. This year, they get B1G newbies Maryland and Rutgers as their crossover games, which is better than having anything to do with Michigan State or Ohio State.

Andersen's offenses at Utah State and then Wisconsin took huge leaps, and there are enough pieces in place for the typically ginormous Badgers to create a powerful rushing game. As long as quarterback Joel Stave takes care of the ball, Wisconsin's offense should be fine.

That will more than offset the losses the Badgers' defense absorbed. No, Wisconsin won't be as miserly on that side of the ball. But this is a program that hasn't given up more than 330 yards per game in any of the last six seasons. The Badgers aren't a great candidate to become bad overnight.

Instead, they might actually be better despite their losses. Probably not as good as the Russell Wilson year in 2011, but good enough to be favored to win at least 10 games and advance to the Big Ten title game for the third time in four years.

Wisconsin in haiku:

Road trip to Wiscy?
Hit State Street Brats near campus
You won't regret it

Besides the habit of its defensive players to find their way into the police blotter this offseason, there's nothing overtly bad about Georgia. It's just that there's a bunch of different elements that make it hard to go all-in on the Bulldogs.

They get three conference home games. They lost career passing leader Aaron Murray (with fifth-year senior Hutson Mason getting his turn this year). They have a new defense, though the switch from Todd Grantham to Jeremy Pruitt is probably a plus, especially after Pruitt's work running the Florida State defense last year.

Still, is that side of the ball going to be fully settled in the opening weeks of the season as it goes against Clemson and South Carolina? Yes, Clemson lost a bunch off its own offense, but that's still a game that has all the makings of a 38-35 contest — much like last year's was.

This should be the second-best team in the SEC East, and one of the top five teams in the SEC. As usual, both of those things count for something. It's also a team that should have things figured out much better come November than it does out of the chute.

It might, in fact, be 2011 all over again. A year after a sluggish season, the Bulldogs could very well drop their first two games and then zip through the rest of the regular season. But if Georgia does make it through mid-September unscathed, it will be looking at a top-10 season and a place in the SEC title game.

Georgia in haiku:

Stop if you've heard this
"Mark Richt has lost control of ..."
High-quality meme